


Death Comes with a Crawl

by ValloryRussups



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M, OOC?, Other, Tom's Era, grey!Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-26 06:01:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValloryRussups/pseuds/ValloryRussups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom Riddle, raised by Merope Gaunt, hates his distant relative Hadrian Peverell who hides secrets and weaves convoluted plots with their fellow Slytherins. The House is divided, and the threat of a Dark Lord looms as threateningly as ever. Yet, Tom cannot abandon his agenda. Neither can Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Open to the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and thanks for clicking! Admittedly, I didn’t expect to start another story, but it won’t leave me alone for weeks, so I guess I have to take it off my chest. I’ve written some future bits of chapters already, so I know where this is going, but the amount of time I put into it will correspond with the number of reviews I get.

Tom Riddle didn’t remember a time he had not loathed Hadrian Peverell.

By now, it had become a common practice, one more whim of the routine Tom followed day by day, to grimace upon Peverell’s arrival and grind out a greeting through clenched teeth. He didn’t often succeed. Sometimes, an irritated grit of teeth would come out, and nothing further – and Tom’s blue eyes would meet the serene verdant.

Had he mentioned he hated colour green?

“You are frowning,” a calm voice that resembled the rustle of dry leaves on the pavement reprimanded gently. A second later Tom’s frown smoothed out under the caress of long fingers, wrinkled from the washing the woman must have down minutes before. In fact, if he strained his sense of smell, Tom could catch whiffs of camomile soap.

“Why are we going there again?” Tom scowled and tore the hands away from his face, only for the scowl to deepen when he heard a wispy laughter from behind. “They don’t like us. They don’t want us there. _I_ hate it there; both that arrogant woman and her brain-dead son.”

Merope sighed and clumped past Tom to drop into the armchair in front of Tom’s. There were only two armchairs in the living-room. Like everything else in the house, those items of furniture were worn and old: the velvety material had long acquired its threadbare splotches, which were a stark almost-creamy contrast to the supposed dark brown the armchairs had once been. They were adequately comfy, Tom supposed, embarrassed to admit he found such a proof of despicable poverty comfortable, and many evenings of his infanthood had been spent in a placid laze while Merope held him on her knees and read aloud the dog-eared tome of Beedle the Bard.

Tom despised his living conditions. He had never brought any acquaintance in – not that he wanted to, but still. The children in Godric’s Hollow had tried to mock him once, long ago, but Tom’s superiority had won in the end: a few displays of “accidental” magic had done the trick, and their arrogance based on material well-being was in shambles.

Merope had scolded him for being unkind. Tom had been, and still was, unrepentant. Actually, he had even paid a visit later to the hiding-spot those children played in. Just to make the lesson sink. Nothing more, nothing less.

Tom thought he would make his ancestor proud.

Merope always only shook her head and allowed that odd sad smile drift across her lips when he confessed his excited belief to her.

Then again, Merope was a kind soul. The sort that Tom could neither become nor understand, and frankly had no desire to do so: muggles didn’t have magic while he did. Wasn’t it good enough a proof? Hadn’t fate itself decided to grant him that gift, leaving muggles bereft?

“You cannot go on like this, Tom. I understand that enjoying human company is a foreign concept to you, but one day you must rise in the world. However genius you are, you cannot avoid socialisation to do that.”

“I don’t hate all people,” Tom stubbornly retorted. It was a lie. They both knew it. “Only the ones who live here. You’re an exception, of course. See? I want many of them dead and gone, true, but haven’t I proved that I l-“ He stumbled upon the word and corrected himself in a heartbeat. “- _like_ you and enjoy your company? You’re human. So, your argument is invalid.”

A tiny smile quirked Merope’s lips.

“You dare laugh at me?” Tom asked sharply, fisting the armrest.

Merope shook her head. The gesture was nervous, quick, like her entire body language. Merope didn’t tell much about her childhood, but sometimes Tom caught hints and easily put them together. A shame, really, that his uncle was long dead. Tom would have added him to a special list of people to brutally kill immediately after his mystery father, of whom the only thing he knew from Merope was the likeness they shared. Every time the reminder came up, the conversation between mother and son halted, with Merope flinching in guilt and Tom staring stubbornly at the wall or any other surface, unwilling to acknowledge any resemblance to the man he deemed a certified imbecile.

“Just happy I have such a smart son.”

" Flattery will get you nowhere. I’m still unwilling to go there.” Seeing Merope’s lowered and cross-eyed but unrelenting stare, Tom switched tactics. “Please, mother?”

_Only to her_ , he vowed. No other man or woman deserved hearing his pleas but her.

“I have to work, honey,” Merope murmured gently. She rose and lurched to Tom, dropping on her knee when she reached him and tracing a tender finger up the smooth skin of his arm. Tom clenched his teeth. “I cannot, in good conscious, leave you cope here alone when I may be gone for hours, ‘til the very late evening. Lady Peverell will gladly receive you-“

“Gladly?” Tom spat. He tore his arm away from her. “She’d rather sniff old socks. Besides, I can wait. Night or day, it doesn’t change anything. I can and I will wait, seeing how you absolutely have to go to work. There’s no need to burden the old stiff.”

Tom rejected the idea so vehemently not least because he had no desire to see Hadrian Peverell, who would once again be _charitable_ , pushing sweets and biscuits into Tom’s hands, thrusting him nifty magical trinkets and gimcracks, sometimes even sharing galleons, all the while looking at Tom with that annoying gentle, if a bit absent-minded, smile that spoke of affection that _didn’t exist_.

That was the main crux between Tom and Hadrian. Or, well, on Tom’s side in any case.

Hadrian’s emotional and perceptive capacities seemed somewhat stunted, from what Tom had seen: reluctantly observing Hadrian he had come to the conclusion that there was an air of mystery surrounding the boy. It was like a veil of faint mist, something intangible and inconsequential, but always present in his everyday interactions. A veil that covered enigmatic knowledge and shielded it from the eyes of eager beholders, and Tom vibrated in his seat to rip it away along with that faraway smile and the same sort of stare, discovering what secrets it hid.

Green eyes were always taunting. Knowing. Seeing. It was as if Hadrian possessed eternal knowledge most other people lacked.

A family secret, perhaps?

Tom’s family had its fair share of them, but it didn’t prevent his curiosity regarding those of others to resurface.

“Patricia Peverell is family, Tom,” Merope replied to him, attracting his attention once more. She tried to be stern but failed, as she always did. “Not only that, but she’s my saviour; _your_ saviour. If she hadn’t come in my time of need, I’m scared to imagine what end would’ve awaited me. Probably death. And orphanage for you.”

Tom froze in his seat despite having heard the story many times. A life apart from Merope, in ignorance regarding his heritage? He couldn’t imagine one.

“When I was about to sell our family treasure-“ She fiddled with an opulently done locket, clashing gold and emeralds, that hung imperiously from Tom’s neck, looking too heavy for a child. “-she interrupted my deal with that vendor man and demanded to know where it’d come from. I told her the truth. I explained everything. And so, she took me here, gave me a home and a job, and allowed me to raise you. All because we are distant cousins.”

Tom sneered and snapped, “That’s because she wished to snatch a piece of Slytherin heritage for herself!” The shout echoed in the bare-walled room. He quietened, continuing in disparaging tones, “And she succeeded, didn’t she? Got the ring.”

Merope shot him a weak smile as she closed her crossed eyes for a second.

“It’s just the ring. To be fair, it belongs to her and her family; the ring was stolen by your grandfather from his uncle once-“

“And you granted me the name of the man who had no qualms in stealing from his family?” Tom demanded sharply.

Merope flinched and lowered her head and her gaze. Tom deflated. He curbed his temper easily, after years of practice.

“I will forgive you,” Tom allowed imperiously before he narrowed his eyes. “And I agree to go to that house for today.”

“And you will be civil to young Hadrian?”

Tom gritted his teeth.

“I will.”

“And you will help Lady Peverell if she asks you to? In the garden or-“

More grinding, plus fist-clenching.

“I will.”

“And I won’t receive any complaints, that you’re drowning her owls again, or stealing potions ingredients and odd trinkets, or bullying other children into breaking into her garden and stomping on the flowers there-“

“On best behaviour!” Tom snapped, his temper on the loose.

Merope smiled. It was strained around the edges, but then again, her smiles always were. They gave the impression of a person who had struggled through her lot in life, eventually coming to a standstill and a confusion as to which path to follow or which direction to take. As if life without pain and hardships was a foreign concept the woman was unwilling to explore, thus remaining forever in that middling state of insecurity, confusion, uncertainty.

Tom sneered and turned away. At times he hated her, too.

* * *

Merope went out charring, usually until late into night. She barely had any magic, so she always completed things manually: the washing-up, the clothes (both ironing and cleaning), the dust, the food. People were quite satisfied with her work, and so, considering she charged so minimal a price that even lower and middle class people could afford it, she got a plenty of offers.

From the muggle part, that is.

Godric’s Hollow was a mixed village, comprised both of wizarding and muggle families. It was incredibly small. A community that held next to none entertainment, but plentiful relaxation and quiet. For most people it was idyllic-

But not for Tom and Merope.

They were both locked into that precarious station between two worlds separated by an invisible line: Merope was a witch who could hardly do any magic, not even enough to ward her house, while Tom was just a small boy with violent accidental bursts of it. Actually, to have _some_ semblance of a normal life and job, outside the house Merope constantly wore an enchanted chain presented to her by Patricia, which enveloped her into a glamour charm and hid her ugly features and figure.

Wizards hardly noticed.

People of Godric’s Hollow were mostly Ministry workers who spent their weekdays away from home, returning only in the evenings, and weekends in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley – two locations Tom heard so much about but had never been in.

“If you’re going to steal, at least make sure it’s something valuable.” Tom sprang away from a figurine in a sea of gimcracks that overflowed a rosewood tallboy. He whirled around to meet amused verdant eyes. “Want me to give you a tip?”

Tom schooled his features into nonchalance and nodded in greeting.

“Peverell.”

“Hadrian,” the black-haired boy corrected in his usual piping voice. “You often call your mother by your first name, why don’t you do the same with me?”

“You are not my mother,” Tom replied with a sneer, covertly taking a further step away from the statuette he had been about to snitch. “Thankfully. I cannot imagine someone just as nosy as you can be.”

Hadrian shrugged his shoulders and leaned against the wall in a relaxed position. Tom reluctantly appraised his small form: inky black hair that fell in tousled waves to bony shoulders, plump lips often curved into a faraway smile, the all-milk-and-roses complexion, and, most importantly, the eyes. The latter changed the shade according to the light and the mood of the owner, going from grass green to bottle-green to almost black, and then back to the apple hue again, but the brightness never changed. It was an alluring pair of eyes, truly. A shame they had to belong to the most annoying person ever, in Tom’s mind.

“I think I have a right to know. It’s my family’s possessions you’re trying to nick, sometimes successfully,” Hadrian reasoned placidly.

Tom raised a mocking brow, advancing towards the other boy. Smugness settled in his chest as he noticed that he was inches taller than Hadrian. A boost to his sense of superiority.

“What happened to your naggings about ‘helping’ Merope and I, with money if necessary, or food?” Tom drawled mockingly. He knew Hadrian would never actually agree to give up anything, he wasn’t obligated, after all, and without that the smaller boy had no reason-

“Glad you’re finally seeing sense!” Hadrian nodded with a grin of approval. Before Tom could blink or otherwise react, the Peverell heir lunged at him and clasped the fabric of his tattered shirt. Dragging Tom down the corridor and to the vintage ladder, he muttered, “Been telling mother for ages about aiding your family, but she doesn’t see why we should, and you always refuse to let me-“

On and on the ramblings went. Hadrian didn’t talk much, but once set off, usually by the topic of Tom’s situation and the stealing he resorted to, the boy would blabber his ears off.

Tom looked down at the hand that had crawled from the sleeve to clutch his own. The Peverell ring blinked its onyx eye up at him. He scowled. He wrenched his hand away.

“Don’t go around grabbing me with your dirty paws,” he hissed, careful not to switch to Parseltongue. Although the sibilant hisses soothed him, he doubted Hadrian would appreciated the talent, not after what Merope had told him about the attitude to Dark gifts in the Wizarding World.

Hadrian stopped. His face looked plastered with the ethereal enigmatic half-smile on it that never came off. Tom wanted to shred that expression into pieces; Hadrian Peverell had no business having that mystique about him.

Tom didn’t understand, and what he didn’t understand he preferred to hate.

“You are being difficult again,” Hadrian accused with a sigh.

“And you are saddling me with the role of a charity case again,” Tom retorted coolly. With an absent-minded eye he regarded his surroundings. A vast hall saturated with the resplendent glory of the masterpieces of the wizarding art: statues, carpets, tapestries, paintings, random trinkets... They were plentiful and yet never created an image of overabundance, instead falling into a cavalcade of fine taste and beauty.

Someday, Tom vowed, he would have a house like that. A manor, even. And maybe more than just one.

“I don’t do it just for anyone,” Harry responded sharply. His piercing eyes bore into Tom’s. “In fact, if it were any other person, magical or muggle, I wouldn’t give a damn. But you? You are family, Tom Riddle, and I shall treat you as such. My mother might not see it much because she doesn’t think people of our age are useful-“

“When it concerns you, I must agree,” Tom bit out with a nastily contorting his face grimace.

“-but you have potential and- what’s the word?” Hadrian’s forehead scrunched up in thought before he exclaimed. “Ah, nurture! Nurture this potential to its full power.” His full lips stretched into a sly smirk, not unlike a fox’s. “And, of course, if I’m so kind as to help you now, you’ll return the favour someday.”

Tom snorted in derision. Walking off in the opposite direction, where the library filled with delicious tomes on magic situated, he visibly showed no signs of waiting for Hadrian. Still, his walk was less brisk than usual. Because of necessity, of course: Patricia Peverell protected her books like zealous goblins protected gold vaults, and only with Hadrian there Tom could escape potential punishment.

“You’re a fool if you believe I’ll fall for that.”

“You’re telling this now, but believe me, when you start Hogwarts you’ll come to me yourself.”

“If you have such strong connections, why is your manor always empty sans you, Patricia, and house elves?” Tom mocked, and was surprised to catch a glimpse of Hadrian’s face in one of the many mirrors they passed on their way. The smaller boy was completely closed off, a frozen wall separated from the rest of the world.

“Sometimes, isolation is the only means of survival.” Hadrian recited that with the long-suffering intonation of someone who had heard the words repeated time and time again. It was the closest Tom had come to the secrets surrounding the Peverell family.

Who was Hadrian’s father? Why did Patricia always hire the best warders in the world to protect her house? Why was no one ever invited, if the Peverell family was indeed as upstart as they claimed and flaunted? Why did Hadrian spend so much time in the graveyard with his album and brushes and painting quills, never showing his pictures to anyone but always so intent on what he was doing? Why Godric’s Hollow? Why save Merope Gaunt for a single, admittedly not the most beautiful or precious, ring? Those questions drove Tom up the wall.

“And Hogwarts might be a tough place for one with a name that is not pureblood. Especially in Slytherin.”

Back to present, he slowed down, but refused to stop completely. Hogwarts: A History was a costly book his family could not afford, and Merope had never attended that school. So, every drop of information was efficiently sponged up.

Didn’t mean he had to show it.

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much,” Tom drawled frostily as he threw a look over his shoulder at Hadrian, his hand reaching for the doorknob to the place a muggle would have called his “heaven”. “I will never need your assistance.”

He could hear laughter in Hadrian’s voice when the younger boy spoke.

“Say, do you want to bet on it, Tom?”


	2. Magic, Magic Everywhere

Should he steal or should he not?

That choice floated in Tom’s mind all the while he sat in the shade of a yew tree just off the local old graveyard. Of course, he would have less difficulty in thinking if only the ravens didn’t crow and the children didn’t poison the air with their laughs as they chased each other all across the area.

Playing tag, they said.

Hah, Tom didn’t need such stupidities in his life, no matter what Merope and Peverell said.

And Merope’s birthday was looming, and Tom didn’t have a present ready: she didn’t give him pocket money, and he found all the trinkets he could make with his hands too distasteful and undignified. He wasn’t some lousy craftsman, for Salazar’s sake.

“Let’s play hide-and-seek!” one of the playing boys called out to his mates. Tom’s glower intensified. Yet, as he thought about it...

“You’re It, then!” another cried out and scrammed, laughing, along with the others.

The remaining child pouted before bellowing, “Countin’ to twenty!” and covered his eyes with his hands.

Tom not-so-patiently waited. When the boy almost finished, Tom sprang to his feet and marched up to him, pulling a fierce expression onto his face. People always said his glares frightened them.

The boy opened his eyes and saw Tom. Abruptly, a scowl crinkled his forehead.

“I don’t wanna play with you. Find yourself another mate.”

Tom scoffed. “Please, as if I would want to. I want you to give me money. I know your parents have it. If you don’t comply... Well, you know what I can do.”

Tom had persuaded a few of them once. The little ones still feared him, thus feeding his self-confidence. This one, though, turned out not as compliant as he would have wanted.

The other boy spat on the ground, scrunching his nose at Tom.

“You’re freaky and poor; I don’t wanna have nothing to do with you.”

Tom’s eyes flashed. Disrespect. He wouldn’t stand for it.

“Words have a price, too,” Tom said softly, almost whispered. The tree crowns swayed in the blowing wind. “I’ll make you pay for yours.”

“Watcha doing-“

The boy clutched his head and screamed. Loud and grating, the sound rang out before descending in volume to a never-ending string of whimpers. He clawed at his temples, tiny beads of blood appearing where grazes were.

“Do you want me to stop it?” Tom asked, entranced. His eyes drank in the display of suffering before him.

He had never seen another human being so hurt and so pitiful. It was ugly. But that sort of ugliness fascinated him, charmed and compelled to keep watching even though the tears disgusted him.

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.

Yet, Tom couldn’t stop watching.

“P- please! Mummy, I- Hurts!”

Tom snapped out of it in fear of attracting attention to them, looking around to see if anyone had noticed- Too late. Merope was walking up to him, no expression on her face. A raven crowed, as if in laughter.

She didn’t talk, but her painful clutch on his upper arms spoke volumes, leaving bruises.

The fact that she spanked him as soon as they got into the house spoke volumes, too: she had never dared to lay a hand on him in all the previous years. Tom stifled the betrayal that sparked in him.

“Why, Tom? Why have you done this?”

Tom knew that witnessing pain reminded her of the family she had abandoned, but Tom had inherited more traits from them than she wanted to believe. He wasn’t sorry. As much as she feared torment, it fascinated him when he caused it.

“He didn’t comply.” Tom shrugged, his lips a thin line. “I don’t have pity for those people who don’t respect me and don’t listen to me.”

“It was within his rights not to give you the money,” Merope reminded him softly. Even now she refused to raise her voice at him.

“He’s rich enough,” Tom spat. “A few coins mean nothing for him.”

“So his being rich justifies it for you? And if he were poor? I don’t believe it would have deterred you.”

It wouldn’t have, Tom knew. He stayed silent for a few more moments.

“I did it for you. You have a birthday coming up soon, and I wanted to give you present.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I don’t appreciate your means, Tom. When you grow up a bit and go to Hogwarts, you’ll meet a different sort of people there. Dangerous, unkind, unforgiving... You might be hurt. You have to- to restrain yourself.”

Tom inclined his head.

“Don’t worry, mother. I am strong. They’ll never hurt me.” He would never let them.

Merope looked at him before sighing.

“You’re still in for a punishment, son.”

* * *

Why did he have to be stuck working in Patricia Peverell’s garden again?

Tom hated it. Hated the damn flowers. Hated the fact that the woman preferred to use muggle means there instead of being a good witch and casting the necessary charms. Hated that he wasted his time there instead of preoccupying himself with truly important things – how to track down his father and dispose of him, for one.

Working, Tom moved deeper into the garden. To his surprise Peverell was sitting on a patch of lawn and drawing. It was a snowy owl, majestic and even menacing. Tom took a moment to reluctantly admire Peverell at work, Peverell’s fingers nimbly speeding over the parchment to add lines and colours.

Something rose in him at the view of his chosen nemesis so placid and acting so naturally.

Finally, Peverell noticed him.

“Your mother told mine what happened. She looked very sad and angry; you should really stop disappointing her so much.” He looked at the drawing and trailed a finger down the owl’s feathery wing. “Even she agrees with me.”

“It’s an ‘it’, not a ‘she’, Peverell.”

“Her name is Hedwig. And she pecks very hard, so beware of sleeping with your window open tonight.”

Tom snuck a look at Peverell’s hands: they were all covered in odd bite marks of sorts. He shook it off. So what if Peverell got himself as owl somewhere in the house?

“Peverell, even if your addled mind believes in imaginary friends from pictures, I don’t. Cease your grating remarks and let me work in peace.”

Tom cut off a beautiful blossom of rose to enforce his message, but Peverell didn’t even glance at him. The disregard annoyed Tom. He stomped on the fallen flower.

“When we go to Hogwarts, it won’t be just us anymore,” Peverell said suddenly. He never looked at Tom, still engrossed in his writing, but by the tension with which he held his pencil Tom knew that the other boy worried. “We’ll have lots and lots of people all around us every day, new friends, new enemies, new connections... We’ll have to share dorms with other people, too. No privacy.”

Tom shrugged. On the one hand, he resented the idea of rooming with strangers and behaving as if he were best pals with everyone around. On the other hand, he would have the chance to get out of this dump and spread his wings – no matter how corny that sounded.

He had already decided that he would act charming and sweet and nice with everyone, and he would pull it off – Tom beguiled people with ease when he found necessity in it. Others wouldn’t have a chance. His influence would start as a tiny spark, and he would nurse it into a firestorm which would sweep everyone into the folds of submission to him.

Lies, lies, lies. Tom trembled in anticipation of plunging into a world of them.

Perhaps then he would forget the world of poverty and hidden shame he lived in.

“I don’t think I will have enemies,” Tom mused. He lifted his foot and glanced at the scattered and torn rose petals beneath it.

“You’re a charmer, so I doubt you’ll have _obvious_ enemies,” Peverell easily agreed. A mischievous smile bloomed on his face as he threw a look at Tom over his shoulder. “Still, not everyone will agree with your ideas once you start spreading them.”

“I’ll make them agree.” It sounded like a promise, and it was.

“What about me?”

Tom scoffed and sauntered to a marble bench that glistened in the sun, sitting down with dignity in his every motion. This way he faced Hadrian and read the other’s expressions. Although he didn’t understand the Peverell heir most of the time, it didn’t mean he couldn’t try or that it didn’t amuse him.

Pevrell’s face never remained completely impassive: he scrunched up his forehead when he thought, and beamed when he was happy, and scowled or glowered when Tom irritated him. Tom liked the ever-changing hues of the other’s eyes, which gave out Hadrian’s innermost thoughts. Also, when he lied, the boy tended to narrow his eyes a bit, as if barely keeping himself from snapping them shut and not see another person’s reaction to his deceit.

When Hadrian smiled, a dimple appeared on his left cheek, while his right one remained dimple-less. Another weirdness of Peverell’s face, Tom supposed.

“Shouldn’t you be working, Tom? Like, getting rid of the weed and all that? Mum won’t be happy to see you dallying around.”

The dimple stood out sharply.

Tom raised his chin imperiously and waved a hand.

“I was getting rid of weed when _my_ mother found me. You can see the consequences. Me standing here working like a common gardener.”

Peverell shook his head, and the green in his eyes dimmed in intensity. His pencil never stopped hurrying to draw lines, so Tom surmised that Tom’s statement came as no shock. What a pity. Tom loved shocking people – one of the few things he loved.

“You were tormenting a boy from our neighbourhood, Tom. When I unintentionally overheard our mums’ conversations, I heard that Jim – or Jack, but that’s beside the point – was _screaming_.”

The pitch of Peverell’s voice descended into whisper, but it didn’t come out as a reverent one Tom had expected. Instead, it smacked of disgust, and Tom’s eyes flashed in fury.

“That guy is a cry-baby. They all are,” Tom replied calmly. If he had a cup of tea at hand, he would have sipped on it to show how much this didn’t impress him. “You are just jealous that you haven’t had such powerful bursts of accidental magic. Which has nothing accidental in it, of course.”

He smirked. “I’m more powerful than you. Than anyone else, actually, so deal with it.”

Peverell tilted his head in a fast, bird-like motion. His eyes glimmered with secrets and reminded Tom of all the things he hated about Peverell.

“Sometimes, sheer force of magic yields to specific talents when one know how to wield them.”

Tom snorted. “You, talented? In annoying the brains out of people, maybe, not in much else.”

“You see whatever you want to see,” Peverell said before schooling his expression into a stern one. “I hope you aren’t going to repeat it? I’ll know if you do.”

“I cover my tracks well,” Tom intoned smugly. He crossed his legs, the garden scissors forgotten by his side. “Besides, I don’t know what you’re harping about. I personally saw you hurting one of the twits around here. Until the point of screaming, too.”

Peverell blinked and pursed his lips. “It doesn’t mean I’m proud of myself for that. More than that, it’s your attitude rather than your acts that really gall me. I don’t mind seeing people hurt, but I mind this treatment: as if they are rubbish just because they haven’t complied with your wishes. When you make an enemy, at least be respectful towards this person.”

“You’re becoming more and more boring, Peverell. I don’t agree with you.”

Peverell shrugged and returned to his drawing.

“Good, good! Makes things so much more interesting.” A faraway smile drifted across his lips as he murmured, “As much alike as our destinies are, in all the fundamental things they toss us to the different sides of the fence.” His vision came in focus again and when he looked at Tom, his eyes were the eyes of a hawk. “You will understand with time. Now, don’t you have some gardening to do?”

Tom scowled and grabbed his scissors, storming off in a thunderstorm of vindictive thoughts, anger, and confusion.

* * *

The path was clear, no Peverells in sight – thank Mordred for that. Tom stalked into the library.

Silence reigned in that place. The ceiling sprang high into the sky, almost like a tower, and the resemblance was only further accentuated by the round form of the room. The shelves were made of rosewood, just like the rest of the furniture in the house, and contained books of all genres and levels of old. The rarest tomes resided under the very spherical ceiling, but the shelves were warded and Tom couldn’t filch one of those books.

He didn’t need one of them now, anyway.

This time, he had to nick a simple book on most basic charms and magical theory. He knew that from there on he would experiment and discover all on his own until Hogwarts.

Tom grabbed a ladder by the door – one of those magical, voice-controlled ones – and ordered it to float up to the second level of the shelves, where he knew by now books on Charms resided.

He browsed through the titles, indecision whirling in his stomach at which book to take. It shouldn’t be a truly great one – Patricia or Hadrian could want to read it – but he didn’t want complete balderdash either.

Finally, his eyes caught the title _Charms for Beginners: Basic Spells and Magical Theory_ on the spine, and Tom pulled the book out of the row, finding it a bit too heavy and thick. He skimmed through the pages and decided that it was informative enough. Moreover, it would last him for a long time, and Tom didn’t know when another opportunity would pop up.

Making up his mind, as quick as a forest critter, Tom tucked the tome under the elastic band of his trousers. Tom didn’t know any shrinking charms yet, so it stuck out a bit, but considering that he had donned his loosest shirt today, it didn’t show as much as he had feared it would.

Tom hopped off the ladder and schooled his expression into one of utter boredom and nonchalance – his default face. This done, he calmly walked down the aisle to report to Patricia that he had finished his work in the garden and was going home. Not that the woman would notice; according to her son, Patricia Peverell only saw galleon numbers and dark secrets when she looked at a person, both being her passion.

Sometimes he even heard Hadrian say that as a trade she would offer gold and trinkets to wizards in exchange for a secret of theirs. She never parted with her books, though, hoarding knowledge to herself much like Tom would.

Actually, the similarities between them disturbed and repelled Tom, just as much as the woman herself disgusted him, and his hatred towards her only increased.

The only difference in their love of secrets was that while Patricia only loved information for information’s sake, Tom’s mind calculated the numerous ways in which he could utilise data to suit his own purposes.

When he had seen Charlus Potter, a stocky Light wizard several years older, snogging a sinfully beautiful girl whom Peverell had addressed as ‘Black’ something, a Dark witch with strong magic singing in the air around her, Tom had blackmailed Potter into buying him two sets of high-quality robes, of casual and of dress variety. That way Tom would arrive at Hogwarts not as a pauper but as the fledgling emperor he was.

Potter had agreed of course: as Peverell had explained to Tom, he was engaged to some girl from a Light family and a scandal would break out if his fling were known.

Tom scoffed.

Useless, useless, useless – that’s what relationships looked to him. Useless and dangerous.

A liaison could make or break a person, and Tom firmly believed that romance would never grip his heart to crush and choke and destroy it. He would rather nip the nasty feelings in the bud before they blossomed.

* * *

They met once more that day. Tom had to report to Patricia about the job well-done, however it stung his pride to do so. He didn’t find her in the lounge or in the garden, and her bedroom was warded, so as a last resort he ascended the stairs to drop by her study.

“-You can’t just keep me cooped in here forever!” Hadrian’s voice bellowed from the insides. Tom flinched back from the door, releasing the handle, and held his breath.

What a delightful opportunity.

Here it was, Tom’s chance to unravel the secrets the Peverells hid. Possibly. Most likely. Anyway, it all depended on Tom’s luck.

He leaned his ear across the rosewood doors – what was it with the woman and the whole rosewood-obsession thing? – and strained his hearing to listen in to the conversation. He missed Patricia’s reply as she spoke too softly for him to make out the words, and all he heard was distant sharp buzzing.

Paricia Peverell always spoke softly, as if she couldn’t dignify anyone with raising the pitch of her voice, deeming them all undeserving of the honour. She always forced everyone to shut up and truly listen. It grated on Tom’s nerves. Made him want to strangle her, that arrogance.

“You always say this,” Hadrian accused. Tom imagined a defiant scowl on his face. Irritation in Hadrian’s voice he didn’t have to imagine. “I won’t run into my father even if I mix with other purebloods. He’s not exactly top welcome person for any family to invite, and the chances of running into him in Hogwarts are pretty low. After all, my father’s-“

The door Tom was leaning against burst open, making him stumble inside and fall in an ungraceful heap. Angry red spreading across his cheeks, the boy raised his head to assess the situation. Hadrian looked as flabbergasted as Tom himself was, frozen in wild gesticulation a inches away from his mother’s desk.

Humiliation. It burnt in Tom’s chest. He didn’t want anyone to see him in that position, fallen and disgraceful, but with Hadrian Peverell it felt even worse.

He schooled his features into indifference with not much luck and rose.

Patricia folded her hands on her chest. Even in her dissatisfaction she looked beautiful, Tom had to admit: ringlets of auburn hair scattered across her shoulders, green-brown eyes shining, and her lipstick the colour of the crimson apples in her garden. Sometimes he wondered if she chose the shade on purpose.

If Tom were capable of admiration, he would feel that towards her. If he didn’t despise her so much, of course, for manipulating Merope and stealing Tom’s ring. True, he did the former constantly himself and the ring originally belonged to the Peverells, but Tom chose to ignore the details he disliked.

“Eavesdropping, are we, boy?” Patricia asked in her ever-so-damn-quiet voice. She sat down, as if Tom wasn’t worth standing.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” Harry piped in quickly. He ran a hand through his hair and bit the inside of his cheek. Tom gave a half-shrug. “Tom was just passing by, didn’t he?”

“And couldn’t resist the temptation of eavesdropping. Of course,” Patricia drawled. She didn’t smile, not even sardonically. She didn’t seem to like smiling.

So unlike her son, Tom mused. Hadrian constantly wore a grin on his face: sometimes silly, sometimes far-away, sometimes bright and happy – but always a grin.

“Please, mum.” Hadrian shook his head. His hair fell into his eyes in a funny way and he ran his hand through it again to tame it – making everything only worse, obviously. “I eavesdrop on you every other day and you don’t seem to be striking a fierce dragon pose.”

“You are my son.”

A tiny motion, but for a second she grimaced.

“And Tom is a cousin.”

“Very distant cousin, mind,” Tom stepped in. He scrunched up his face at the thought of being related to the absent-minded fool. He hated Peverell. Well, both of them, but with Hadrian the hatred was special: sometimes he felt it stronger than  with anyone else and sometimes something else took its place, something Tom didn’t want to contemplate. Companionship? He tossed such notions out of his head.

“I don’t appreciate being spied on in my own house,” Patricia said after a small pause. “Private conversations remain private – this is the main rule of this house,” she addressed Tom.

“I haven’t broken it.” Tom smirked. “Besides, private conversations can be between more than two people.”

As always, he made his question sound like a statement.

A peal of laughter bubbled out of Hadrian’s throat. “We can’t spend forever here, mum. Tom repents-“ Tom scoffed. “All right, even if Tom doesn’t repent, let’s forget about the incident and enjoy life. He hasn’t heard anything substantial anyway.”

Resolutely grabbing Tom’s hand, Hadrian dragged him out of the study. The action, as always, scandalised Tom so much he didn’t even have the wits to push the other away.

“Will you bloody release me?” Tom hissed as soon as they reached the front door. Peverell clearly had all the intentions of tactfully throwing Tom out of the house. “Your hands are sticky!”

“It’s not!” Hadrian yelped in response, glaring at Tom. He huffed. “Well, all right, it’s hot so of course they are sticky! Yours aren’t dry cotton either, y’know?”

“How do you know I haven’t overheard anything exciting? I can go around shooting my mouth off and everyone will know your every dirty secret, Peverell.” Tom smirked smugly and crossed his arms over his chest. “I can blackmail you now.”

Hadrian snorted. “Believe me, had you heard, you would’ve known. And you wouldn’t have reacted too favourably to it-“ A remote look overtook him again. “Or, on the contrary, you’d be glad to know. Glad to have such a thing to hold over my head, I mean.”

“Don’t exaggerate your importance to me, Peverell,” Tom said and threw him a disgusted look. “Or your importance in general. You are a little nitwit who-”

Tom’s mouth snapped shut when locks of hair got into his mouth. His eyes froze in an unblinking stare. Oh, it was just Hadrian Peverell embracing him.

Hell. It was Hadrian Peverell embracing him!

For a few moments Tom felt foreign roaming hands on his body but was so gobsmacked he didn’t beat them away, instead standing like a fool, his left hand half-raised and hovering just above Peverell’s back without really touching the boy.

The embrace ended. Tom mentally shoved the weird pang of loss.

Peverell was smiling, an earnest smile which would have melted any other person’s heart – or at least would have made them to respond in kind. Not Tom, of course. Tom didn’t do smiles or grins or laughs.

He scowled and scooted away from the Peverell heir, his glower promising retribution.

He didn’t utter a word, though.

Pushing away a tingle of warmth in his chest engrossed him too much for that.

“You are silent.” Peverell blinked before his lips pulled back in a fox-like grin. “Now I know that the way to shut you up is a friendly hug! Who’d have thought?”

And with one last cheerful utterance of “Use them well!” Peverell literally pushed Tom out of the house.

Tom was going to _stomp down_ Patricia’s prized flowers the next time he went there.

Or better yet, burn all the drawing supplies Peverell had.

* * *

It was the day of Merope’s birthday now. Tom had the money to buy her a present now, since as he had discovered later, Peverell in all his benevolence and goodwill had slipped several galleons during his embrace, the sneaky brat.

But he didn’t want to. No, now Tom had discovered a better way to spend his hug-earned money.

He caressed the spine of his Charms book, again and again.

The moment he had opened it, it had immersed him in a world of spells and real magic – nothing like the amateur stuff he had been attempting on his own at the silent graveyard. Tom adored it all: discovering the way he could tweak spells and trying out charms with all his willpower and practicing wand motions with a wooden stick found in the garden – from a yew tree he sometimes enjoyed sitting under, his book on his lap.

He never parted from it.

He read it with a zeal some children read fairy tales and some professors read about the subject of their passion.

And, obviously, his reading was coming to an end, for he had gulped half the tome down in a couple of weeks.

He had to stock up, but couldn’t risk smuggling another book out of the Peverells’ library. Buying it remained his only option. Merope didn’t really need a present.

Just as he thought that, she entered. The bags under her eyes were growing with each day, and she lumbered as ungracefully as ever before landing on a three-legged chair – the fourth one missing – to rest after an afternoon of work.

“Happy Birthday,” Tom said indifferently. His eyes were trained on the lines of tiny script, his hand still caressing the spine like he would a precious lover.

Tom heard a smile in her voice as she spoke, “Thank you, Tom. How was your day?”

Tom never replied to such nonsensical questions. He didn’t do small talk.

After a while of sitting in a companionable silence, Tom spoke up.

“I’ve decided to stop stealing. A birthday present to you, if you want it.”

Merope’s chair scratched the floor with a screech, but Tom didn’t think about it until his mother _hugged_ him. Salazar, he was surrounded by cuddle-loving nitwits. He hoped it wasn’t contagious. Shifting and grimacing, Tom reluctantly patted his mother on the back.

“I’m so happy you’re seeing sense now, Tom,” Merope mumbled into his ear. “You’ll start socialising with other children now, right? To play with them, and talk with them, and share secrets... I’d be so happy if you did that. So happy,” she continued muttering.

Tom shoved her away as gently as possible – that is, she didn’t fall to the floor from the impact.

“Mother,” he started with a stern frown on his childish face. “I have agreed not to steal – I have not agreed to become a- what’s the name again? Oh, yes, Huff-puff or some such. I’m a man, not a pansy.”

Merope responded him with a jerky shake of her head.

“Your change of mind worries me, then, if it’s not because of you want to play with the children.”

A smile bloomed on Tom’s face. It radiated happiness and honesty – too emotions he rarely felt and never showed.

“I don’t need stealing because I already have everything I need.”

Merope laughed, probably because she thought he meant their house and, well, herself, and Tom didn’t strip her of the delusion. He also refused to ponder on Hadrian and the growing distance between them in the past few days, and Hadrian’s frown-y disposition as of late.

For days to come, Tom immersed himself into the realm of magical incantations and wand motions. He threw all the secrets of the twisted Peverell family out of his head for now: what were the trifles of people in comparison to the majesty of power at his fingertips?


	3. Last Shreds of Innocence

 

The room was lit up with a dozen floating lights which cast eerie shadows on the walls and the floor and their faces. Patricia continued with her nightly rite of imparting sacred knowledge upon Hadrian, and obviously found no other setting better than a study half-plunged into darkness. Her lips formed the words, but Hadrian didn't hear them, opting instead to stare at his drawing of Hedwig pinned to the wall, a drawing which lent him more power nowadays than anything else.

Snippets of words still broke through to his brain though, despite his unwilling demeanour.

"...find and unite them, boy... you already have one... it is a race, race, race, and we must win..." she murmured to him urgently as her hands clutched his shoulders and her claw-like nails dug into his skin. Hadrian continued staring over her head at Hedwig. "We will achieve immortality, boy, immortality!..."

Her voice always crescendoed on 'immortality', rising from her usual soft murmur and becoming so shrill that Hadrian winced before mumbling words of agreement he didn't feel.

"Promise me you will never share this secret with anyone," Patricia demanded sharply. Her eyes dug into his with the force and velocity of a plunging eagle. "Immortality is not a matter to be shared in a casual tête-à-tête with an acquaintance."

"What about a friend or a lover?" Hadrian asked. Suspicion as to what the answer was already boiled in his belly, only intensifying with Patricia's laugh.

"Friends? You have no need for those, boy, since they will only hinder you on your quest. They demand time and honesty, they whine, they treat you familiarly and are overall too humiliating to have around.” She turned away from him. “Friendship is not for formidable dark wizards and witches like we are but for senseless light wannabes. The Hallows will be your friends when you acquire them and will deliver a friendship with Death itself to you. I dare say that this connection is more important than any relationship with mortals.”

"And have you ever had one? A friend?" Hadrian wanted to ask, but didn't.

Patricia would hurt him if given a reason, and useless bravado aside, Hadrian feared her punishments more than he feared most else. Not because of the brutality - she believed that prolonged physical torture didn't break a person in a satisfying way – but because she would try to indoctrinate him again. Obsession scared Hadrian; he didn't want to feel that smouldering desire to achieve a goal that he witnessed everyday in Patria, glimpsed constantly in Tom Riddle, read about in prominent wizards' lives.

And seeing that _desire_ led to obsession, he evaded having many interests or hobbies, evaded forging too many relationships. Evaded desires.

He left only those he couldn't let go of. Drawing and Tom Riddle.

His thoughts drifted to the other boy. Tom Riddle. At different times the other boy infuriated and amused Hadrian, disgruntled and astonished, attracted and repelled.

A special sort of charm lingered about him, incongruous with his poor (albeit neat) clothing and a constant frowney face. Hadrian loved to irk the other boy and even loved to argue about their views, which differed rather a lot in all the points that mattered. They never got along.

Yet in a twisted way they did.

Despite their bickering and Tom’s constant attempts at insults which only drew laughs from Hadrian Tom also showed his care sometimes. They were tiny ways, but they existed. Sometimes Tom stepped in to protect Hadrian, even though the green-eyed boy fought for himself just fine, and sometimes Tom shared his plans and doing with him.

Moreover, Tom never put up a front in front of him and it mattered.

Still, what were those tingles which broke out into dance on his skin when the other boy touched him? What was that almost stifling feeling of affection when Tom ranted about his goals and acted like a superior jerk, still somehow including Hadrian?

Only the absence of conversation for two years had made Hadrian realise just what he wanted Tom to be for him.

He gulped before asking softly, "What about a lover? I think that a person I love would have to know about my quest-"

"Love vanishes when matters of immortality are brought up," Patricia cut in sternly. She pulled her hands away from her son and sauntered to her desk, gracefully sitting down. "They would want to use you and dispose of you, so I will not hear of such ridiculous things as 'telling friends and lovers' again. If you disobey me, you will write a two-feet essay on the Dark Lords who fell by the hand of their-" She sneered. "-closest ones."

"I'm not going to be a Dark Lord," Hadrian retorted before a frown creased his forehead. He shot Patricia an uncertain look. "Unless this is what you aim for?.."

Patricia chuckled. "Oh no, Dark Lord is a meagre title when compared to the Master of Death itself. I'm sure you know why."

"A Dark Lord might rule over the living, but once they die, they enter a respite from the travail of this life. The Master of Death, on the other hand, may reach them beyond the veil of existence... He can condemn his enemies with endless suffering. A never-ending circle of agony." Hadrian shook his life. He ignored excitement bubbling up in him at the prospect.

To command such power, to grasp such invincibility-

But Hadrian didn’t want to live forever, and that was the catch.

“Now, I want to give you a final gift before you go to Hogwarts,” Patricia drawled as she opened a cabinet and rifled through the parchments stacked in there before bringing to light a booklet. As her eyes skimmed a page, Harry’s own eyes narrowed; Patricia’s gift-giving somehow made him poorer with every time and not necessarily in the material sense.

“I don’t want any,” Hadrian told her. His words echoed from the walls but found no residence in Patricia’s hearing.

“It is merely a spell which will make you unable to lose the Resurrection Stone,” Patricia said before smiling coldly. “You want to go to Hogwarts, don’t you, boy?”

Hadrian gritted his teeth as he realised the implication; she wouldn’t let him attend Hogwarts if he didn’t yield to her whims.

As always, he yearned for the day he achieved freedom. Possibly, he could at least find his father… If his father didn’t prove to be the same obsessed failure of a parent.

“Come here,” the woman ordered imperiously. Hadrian pulled on an impassive expression and thought about butterflies and birds and paintings as he obliged and advanced forward with uncertain steps.

She whipped out her wand and directed it at Hadrian before grabbing his finger with the Peverell ring on it. A whisper of spells fell from her lips, but Hadrian let it slide off him as he gasped in pain. His finger felt as if a cord of fire wrapped itself around it. Patricia’s hand shot out to clutch him when the boy attempted to wrestle his hand out of her hold and slip the ring off.

“You can tolerate a bit of pain, boy!” Patricia chided him sharply, and the moment passed. “See? It was not a large amount of pain in any case.”

“I don’t appreciate you hurting me just to protect your trinkets,” Hadrian bit out sharply. He tugged his hand to himself and rubbed his finger, his green eyes glowering at her all the while. The woman only waved him off as if he were some fruit fly daring to speak up.

"Now is can only come off with your finger," Patricia said without hiding her glee. "No worries that anyone will take this ring away from you!"

_Thank you, dear mother,_ Hadrian thought. _It makes me happy to know you try your hardest to give people more incentive to chop my limbs off._

Of course, he didn't speak aloud. His voice influenced Patricia as much as a random muggle's would, unless he recounted his daily achievements and how his research was going, and even those activities interested her in as far as the Deathly Hallows were concerned. Her quest for them consumed her entirely and left no place for Hadrian to butt in.

And with years he had discovered that he didn't even want to. He didn't love her just like she didn't love him. They didn't respect each other. They both saw each other as means to their goals: Patricia provided Hadrian with material well-being while she viewed him as the seeker of her priced Hallows, a Master of Death she desired to manipulate but had no will to become herself because of the price she would have to pay. Mastery, especially over Death, didn't come for granted.

Hadrian’s mind drifted to the first in-depth discussion of the Hallows in his sixth year of life.

 

* * *

 

Winter's skilled hand painted the wide windows of the house with frost, and Harry avidly observed the ornaments, appreciating the beauty of the twists and swirls, ethereal on the vast surface. In his young age he already recognised and admired beauty and elegance, and attempted to transfer his vision onto the canvas, so paintings and drawings hung on one side of the wall in artistic disarray, and littered his table, and stuck to pieces of furniture. At first his mother protested, insisting he decorated them with 'proper art', but Hadrian stubbornly refused and shouted that he would be a great artist someday. His works would be considered 'proper art', too, and they didn't embarrass him.

By that time his mother had long since come to terms with the fact that Hadrian enjoyed 'frivolities' she despised, and so she had only raised her upper lip in disgust before storming off into the library.

She always did that even now. That silent disdain offended Hadrian even more than a harsh rebuke would.

He only hoped that she forgot such incidents at least for a day, since it was Yule. She did go to fetch a present for him, after all, in response to his own portrait of her.

(And if he glimpsed his gift in the rubbish bin, cast aside with leftovers of food and scraps of parchment, he pretended not to see.)

Waiting patiently for her to enter, Hadrian thought about the gift he prepared for his distant cousin Tom. The perfectly wretched human being that Tom was, of course he wouldn't appreciate Hadrian’s present - a bracelet in the form of a thin snake which wound around a wrist - but at least Hadrian would enjoy an interesting reaction; Tom was full of those and even unaware of it himself. He would probably glower funnily at him again if he knew the thoughts running through his head.

They could spend the entire day together. Chat, play... that's what Yule was about, wasn't it? To spend time with family, and Hadrian considered Tom the best family he could have and had.

“Hadrian,” Patricia greeted him, entering his room. He smiled at her and nodded. “You are turning six today, so I want to present you with a family heirloom.”

“Sounds exciting!” Hadrian piped cheerfully before tilting his head in expectation.

“You have heard about the ring, I surmise?” she asked with a glint lightening her eyes. “The one which the Peverells have had since the great Cadmus Peverell created it?”

“Yes, Tom always rants at me about it, since he’s sure that you’ve stolen the ring from his family. He is wrong though, isn’t he? The ring never belonged to him in the first place.”

“You are right.” Patricia sneered and ran a hand through her auburn ringlets of hair. “The Gaunts are a mediocre little family of deranged sub-human beings with no claim to the artefacts of their superiors. Their only family craft is stealing – the only craft they are good at. Look at the current generation, even! That boy goes around filching objects from common muggles, and there is no further disgrace than that.”

Hadrian frowned and stomped his foot. “You shouldn’t talk about Tom like this. A thief he might be, I like him.”

In Hadrian’s mind his own favour of a person justified it all, of course.

“I haven’t come to this-“ Patricia swept the entire room with a look full of disgust. “-room to talk about disgraces. Here is your gift.”

Hadrian watched with fascination as she pulled out a small gold box with swirling designs on it to gently lay it into his hands. With reverence he had caught from his mother, the boy held his breath and opened it to reveal a big ring with a shining onyx stone. He raised his eyes to Patricia.

“Is it the Heir Ring?” he asked with incredulity, pride, and breathless wonder all mixed into one.

Heir Rings signified one’s station in the world. Often they were the only objects which divided legal heirs from bastards, especially since purebloods never saw much point in contraceptive charms. They preferred to procreate and spread their magic types (Light and Dark), but they didn’t fancy diving their fortune. Speak about hypocrisy.

So, with the Heir Ring Hadrian could officially attend elite gatherings and be considered on the same level as the Malfoy and the Black heirs and many others. Lots and lots of perks came from such a position.

“It is. But it is also much, much more,” Patricia whispered, just as awed as him, but for different reasons.

She proceeded to tell him about the Hallows and their purpose, about the Master of Death and about her reasons for wanting it.

“Why do you want ME to become the Master of Death when you can snag the title for yourself?” Hadrian asked her after she finished with her tale. Thoughts and ideas rushed through his mind in a firestorm full of excitement, but despite the activity going on in his mind he couldn’t move from his frozen position on the sofa.

“The mastership can be stolen,” Patricia drawled in annoyance. Hadrian’s questions always irritated her. “And do you know what awaits _former_ Masters of Death?”

Harry shook his head mutely.

“Torture, boy,” his mother whispered. “Endless, endless agony. You see, the Hallows unite with the wizard’s very soul, so when they are torn away, the soul suffers. And the suffering doesn’t end because they are immortal. Through you, though, I will have all the perks of the mastership without any potential trouble.”

“And I am just the ideal means for you.”

A cruel smile tugged on the corners of his mother’s lips.

“Do you believe I would have birthed and shaped you otherwise?”

Hadrian told himself that the admission didn’t hurt, that he had known all along- but it did. He held back his tears because Patricia loathed displays of overflowing emotion.

“Can I at least participate in galas now? I like Tom and even Charlus when I get to talk to him, but I’d love to-“

“Of course not,” his mother cut in. She turned her back to him and sauntered to the door, her gaze lingering on him for one more time. “There are rising figures of the wizarding world who will strike you down once they know who you are. You are too weak and useless to play against them at the moment; wait until you are older to participate.”

She walked out and left her son behind in the room, alone as always. Hadrian didn’t feel up for celebrating Yule anymore.

_Someday, I’ll break away from you,_ he promised to himself and to the world then. He always kept his promises.

 

* * *

 

A hundred of passing birds crowded the sky, creating wild patterns of black on the greyish blue, and for a moment Hadrian stared up at it. Someone called his name, a random muggle he didn't give a damn about, but Hadrian didn't respond; being used to him just standing and staring off into space or scrutinising objects, the person went away. Ignoring somebody was really the best way to drive them away, Hadrian had learnt early.

He employed the tactics when he wanted to think without outside interferences, and lots of thoughts had been exploding in his mind recently. Loneliness drove him to make greatest of discoveries, so mind-boggling and breathtaking that he even forgave Tom for his absence.

He would have never found out how to make his drawings live otherwise.

Tom never saw the true gems of the library. He only coveted the tomes behind Patricia's wards and books on powerful, mostly offensive magic. He had nicked a few books on Charms, of course, and general magical theory, but he had chosen them because the disappearance of rare works would have been noticed by Patricia.

Yet Hadrian did, and so his childhood found him in an attempt to transfer whatever he painted or drew into real life.

After a while, he had found his answer. The very sacred writings of magic, the power of symbols, the force anyone could wield even without having an astounding amount of raw potency. The ancient runes.

Hadrian didn't uncover all the secrets of the art, but he constricted his research only to the areas of interest to him: how to bind magic to the picture, how to apply the runes, which ones to draw, how much power to transfer into the symbol, and the like. Myriads of questions, all answered in the books as he wasted his nights away in the secrecy of candlelight and perused his mother's collection, only the moon witnessing his mischief through the window. Those nights yielded results, and Harry acquired a perfect model to follow in his plight: magical photographs.

They were built differently from the muggle ones, or so he read. Well, muggles surely didn't inscribe runes all along their cameras, Hadrian decided. Wizarding devices, on the other hand, contained an alarming amount of arrays of symbols which allowed the pictures to move, albeit they still differed from wizarding paintings.

Paintings, of course, served as another source of inspiration to Harry: after completing the portrait (and they had to retain the likeness, or it wouldn't work at all) wizarding painters engraved runes along the silhouette of the depicted wizard or witch, transferred magic into them, and thus breathed life. Hadrian only added to that a complicated array of runes which allowed physical passage of bodies across planes.

And so he knew everything.

Once a drawing returned into the parchment (he couldn’t keep them live for a long time, after all), Hadrian received visions of what it had seen. So, his mind was filled with random deeds of the entire village. He kept his eye on Tom most of all, but also on Patricia who behaved strangely nowadays, always anxious and more off-her-rocket than usual.

He knew, for instance, that right now Tom was torturing another animal just as he had been doing for a few weeks. Thank Merlin that at least it was an animal. Hadrian had had to interfere when Tom had got a brilliant idea to try out his tricks on an offending boy.

Besides, it would be the last opportunity they had to talk before going to Hogwarts, where they could get into different Houses. Hadrian knew that he would pursue his goals there (acquiring complete freedom, for one) and would likely be unable to interact with the other boy as much.

He wanted to do something very mischievous and something that would send Tom into a spitting rage, so the ride to Hogwarts would allow the older boy to cool off.

Yes, he had to be daring. Harry knew how.

 

* * *

 

When the mouse whimpered again, Tom smirked in elation at his own power that thrummed under his fingertips. It hummed reassuringly each second he held his wand, and Tom even slept with the thing, and ate with it in his pocket, and carried it around everywhere.

He had long since memorised his theory and Charms books as well as Hogwarts textbooks, so now he applied himself to practice.

And if Hogwarts curriculum didn’t include the magic he practised… well, it was useful in adult life. Wasn’t Hogwarts all about learning?

“You do know that wizards usually don’t like this sort of thing?” a familiar voice said laughingly behind him and Tom gripped his wand tighter. And here came the menace. “There is this place called ‘Azkaban’ – you’re guaranteed an educational trip there if you keep it up.”

“You!” Tom snapped, turning around to meet with the sight of a smiling Hadrian.

“Yes, Tom, I’ve always been me.” The green-eyed wizard clad in equally green robes nodded sagely. “One would think that after seeing so little of me for two years, you’d be more gracious.”

Tom scowled at the veiled reprimand, and the scowl deepened once he remembered that even though they hadn’t _talked_ much, Tom had still _seen_ the other boy, following Peverell so that he wouldn’t notice Tom’s scrutiny. And no, it wasn’t stalking, merely purposeful observation. Spying after a potential menace and preventing disasters, if you will.

“I was busy,” Tom replied curtly. And he had been. Acquiring power wasn’t a matter of several training sessions. “In fact, even now I don’t have time for you.”

“Go away,” he wanted to say, but hesitated to do so. He missed Peverell, even though he was telling himself that he missed the boy just because of the information the other offered.

“I know what you were busy with.” Hadrian calmly walked to a tree trunk and leaned against it without a care in the world. Tom sneered; the bark seemed dirty to him. “Torture, torment, gore… going for the kill at Hogwarts, are we? You shouldn’t have done it so much, because if not for me Charlus Potter would have discovered it.”

Shock pierced through Tom before he marched up to Peverell, grabbing his neck as he hissed, “What?”

The other boy remained unfazed, as if a clutch on his throat were a warm embrace instead which he experienced every day.

“Be thankful; if not for me, you’d have been blackmailed by him already. Or reported… Then again, you’re ‘just a kid’.”

Hadrian chortled in laughter at that description of Tom, but Tom wasn’t much amused. He sneered. His mind reeled with all the ways Hadrian could have acquired that information. Stalking? No, because Tom would have felt a presence watching him. Someone else reporting? No, again, Tom would have-

Then he remembered a remark thrown casually by Merope the other day.

“Your conjured animals!” Tom breathed out, unwittingly releasing Hadrian and seeing him in a different light, through a prism of expanding possibilities.

“Conjuration?” Hadrian looked gobsmacked before he regained his bearings and laughed again. “Oh no, Tom, you’ve dropped the ball here. “Conjuration is not the only way to summon creatures into existence.”

And here came Peverell’s trademark irritating smile.

“I will discover what you are hiding from me,” Tom spat. His fingers clenched into fists at the vow to himself. “I always find out and once I do, it isn’t pretty. I’ll drag every little secret out of you, Peverell, and will make you work for me if you don’t want those secrets to become known to everyone.”

Peverell shrugged. “Of course you will discover some of it one day – you’re not a stupid chap, Tom, even if you might have some self-confidence problems.”

“I don’t have any-“

“Say Tom, you called me a coward once, remember?” Hadrian asked Tom suddenly. The older boy scrunched up his forehead at the sudden question.

“I’m still of this opinion,” he drawled snidely after he realised that it didn’t contain any hidden depth.

Hadrian nodded to himself with determination shining in his eyes.

“I hope you’ll change it after this.”

Tom didn’t have the time to even gasp or gape before Hadrian lunged at him. A second later soft lips connected with his and he didn’t want to anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for your incredible comments!
> 
> All the info regarding the chapter progress is posted on my profile here :D

**Author's Note:**

> There are only two chapters more before the beginning of Hogwarts. Although there’s a myriad of potential occurrences and interactions, I don’t want to drag out the pre-Hogwarts time. The second chapter will likely get out fairly soon, but admittedly this story isn’t on the forefront of my mind at the moment. But! If I see that it gets a lot of reviews, I might reconsider and work on it some more.
> 
> Also, in this chapter I had to introduce Merope, so there’s a lot of it, but in the next chapters her role will be gradually diminishing (but don’t forget that she is the only person Tom loves right now!).


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